Young salespeople can improve their business acumen by following recent news and reading relevant books to learn more about key topics, writes Anthony Iannarino. Inexperienced salespeople should take good notes after meetings with clients and learn from the stories of more experienced reps, Iannarino writes.

Sales departments must work to remove any tension between themselves and marketing teams in order to achieve more predictable pipelines, as terms such as "qualified" and "follow up" must be well-defined in order to allow for pipeline visibility, writes Matt Heinz. In addition, sales managers should encourage their teams to focus more on long-term results, which allows for a more nuanced approach to pipeline management.

SAP's Alison Biggan and Pitney Bowes' Bill Borrelle share their thoughts on how business-to-business marketers can more effectively engage prospects by delivering a superior customer experience across the entire buying journey. "If you are not differentiating based on experience, and doing everything you can to meet your customer's expectations, you're opening it up for a competitor," Biggan says.

President Donald Trump is delaying by two weeks the effective date of hiked tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. Trump said it was a "gesture of good will" in response to a request from the Chinese government.

Try and practice the idea of "heart-centered communication," which relies on positive intent, focus, asking questions and repeating what the other person said for understanding, writes IMPAQ CEO Mark Samuel. "It is less of a skill and more of an intention to care about the state a person is in when communicating as well as the experience of the person receiving the communication," he argues.

"Megaphone" leaders spell out what they want their teams to do, while "mirror" leaders inspire employees to do their best by modeling what it takes to succeed, writes Molly Page. "Mirror leaders inspire introspection by individual contributors, and they trust that others can innovate and find solutions to the task at hand," she writes.

Adobe is enhancing its Target tool with a variety of new features to enhance personalization. These include recommendations based on profile data; tutorials, sample code and tips for mobile app personalization; and new software development kits to enable brands to use a visual editor to personalize content and messages.